Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Kitty Prozac

I want to preface this entire post by saying I love our cat. He is wonderful to our kids and to our friends children. He is patient and polite when 1 year olds pull his fur, he lays still when William uses him as a pillow and he even lets the kids carry him around sometimes. He is the best cat to have with a family.

Lately though he has become high maintenance. It started weeks ago with constipation. I couldn't get a vet appt so I used Vet Google to find out how to solve his problem, short of an enema of course. We ran out to the store to buy canned pumpkin, baby food prunes and wet cat food. After two all day vet stays he was rehydrated and given pain meds. Then he began symptoms of a UTI; peeing all over the house and trying to pee every 10 minutes. Another vet visit later, more meds and he was doing better. When the pain meds ran out we had another bout of UTI-like symptoms.

That's when the doctor started saying my cat is stressed. Really?! What exactly is stressful about his life. Half of our house is off-limits to kids, but not to kitty. His food, water, house, and blanket are all in the off-limits part of the house. What exactly is stressful about being an indoor cat that is fed multiple times a day.

The vet suggested multiple litter boxes, multiple water dishes and a few other homeopathic changes. I skipped the extra litter box, if the 6 people have to share one toilet than the cat only needs one toilet - not two. But I did spend over $100 on a water fountain type drinking fountain that runs all the time, making me think my washing machine has over-flowed, and a phermone diffuser in the main room of the house so the cat feels calm; think Glade plug-in for cats.

At one point I told the vet that I couldn't see how the cat was stressed; we are a one pet household and he has full access of half of the house. She responded, "well, there are a lot of kids there." Yeah, because I am going to chose the cat over my kids.

A week later it started up again. We ended up putting the cat on oral narcotics as needed. The original directions were for 3 times a day at $4 a dose. But we have weaned him down to every other day at this point. I think this whole would be easier if he could just say "it hurts right here".

The diffuser is plugged in, but I haven't noticed a difference in his behavior unless he is on the narcotics. I still haven't seen him drink from the fancy water fountain. I have had to refill it, so I hold out hope he is drinking it, rather than the water evaporating. At this point we have managed to avoid kitty Prozac. He seems to be doing okay now. Maybe he just needed a little attention so he didn't get lost in our big family.